\section{Research Objectives}
\label{sec:researchobjectives}

Our main goal of this research is to take a methodological approach that enables us to answer the research question. We want to utilise a well considered method to create a conceptual maturity model with a normative nature. A normative model is one that prescribes or relates to the norm for how something should be or behave \citep{NORMATIVE} and therefore it is important for us to capture ideal and interdependent actions that can lead to increasing the open data maturity in a smart city. Therefore it is also vital for us to investigate and elaborate on the concept of open data maturity of a smart city ecosystem. We have not been able to find contemporary research that takes a normative approach to any aspect of smart city maturity and our hope is to fill that gap and illustrate a possibility to simplify the smart city ecosystems and provide generic guidelines.

Another objective is to understand how open data can be used as a sustainability-enabler in smart cities and we hope to be able to find answers to this during our analysis. It requires that we do a thorough literature review on the concept of sustainability and develop an understanding of it as part of an empirical data analysis. The objective of subquestion 2 is to understand which incentives structures are needed for smart city actors to collaborate and share data. We hope to be able to unveil some general behavioural mechanisms among smart city actors and find out how to facilitate those mechanisms that attract support for collaboration. Maturity is the focal point of our research.



%Decrease Market failures = sum of Negative externalities can be eliminated with this model. \bigskip

%\noindent Normative research which provides guidelines for decision making as \cite{KUADA} writes on pp. 42-43 -> refer to this! We both have a normative and descriptive part. Maybe we should write about that last part in the methodology instead: to be able to have a normative result we have to have a descriptive part.
